Weekly anb08302.txt #8

[anb-bia <anb-bia@village.uunet.be>]

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 30-08-2001      PART #2/8

* Angola. Dos Santos n'est pas candidat  -  Le président Eduardo Dos 
Santos, 58 ans, ne briguera pas un nouveau mandat lors de l'élection 
présidentielle prévue l'an prochain. Son parti, le MPLA, l'a annoncé lors 
d'une conférence de presse à Luanda, quelques heures après une réunion de 
son comité directeur. On ignorait, le 23 août, les raisons pour lesquelles 
le président a décidé de jeter l'éponge. Selon un groupe de défense des 
droits de l'homme, cette décision pourrait contribuer à mettre fin à la 
guerre civile presque ininterrompue qui fait rage en Angola depuis son 
indépendance en 1975. M. Dos Santos est président de l'Angola depuis 1979. 
Son intransigeance face à la guérilla de l'Unita est battue en brèche par 
une opinion qui a commencé, depuis plusieurs mois, à exiger des 
négociations, soutenue en cela par l'Eglise catholique.   (ANB-BIA, de 
sources diverses, 24 août 2001)

* Angola. Dos Santos not standing for presidency  -  President José Eduardo 
dos Santos of Angola said on 23 August that he would not stand in future 
presidential elections in the oil-rich country. "Whether elections happen 
in 2002 or 2003, we will have [time] for this party to prepare its 
candidate for the electoral battle," he said at the opening of a two-day 
meeting of the ruling MPLA party's central committee in Luanda. "It is 
clear that the candidate, this time, will not be called José Eduardo dos 
Santos." There has been widespread speculation in Angola about the 
president's plans and much scepticism as to whether he really intends to 
stand down. An opposition politician in Luanda said he thought the move was 
a bold gamble aimed at bringing together a ruling party squabbling over how 
to stop a seemingly endless war against Jonas Savimbi's Unita rebels. "With 
this, he will get people sympathetic to him." Another observer said the 
surprise move would throw potential challengers in the MPLA off guard. "In 
my opinion he is not ready to give up. I think he wants the MPLA now to 
tell him 'Please, no, don't do that', then he can change his mind and say 
the people begged him to stay."   (Financial Times, UK, 24 August 2001)

* Angola. De Beers is optimistic on Angolan deal  -  De Beers, the South 
African diamond company, walked out of Angola in a huff in May but now 
thinks it can do a deal with the Angolan government after all. On May 24 
the company said it had decided "with immediate effect, to suspend its 
investments and prospecting operations in Angola". It said it had taken the 
decision "reluctantly" following an impasse in negotiations to clarify its 
legal rights. The company, which sells around two-thirds of the world's 
rough diamonds, has no mines in Angola and closed all its buying offices 
there in late 1999, in response to United Nations worries about 'conflict 
diamonds' leaking out into the official market. But it had carried on 
prospecting for new deposits in partnership with Endiama, the Angolan state 
diamond company. Its negotiations have been designed to obtain favourable 
agreements in relation to any new mines the partnership develops. When De 
Beers called a halt to the negotiations in May, it complained that it had 
been unable to get anywhere in the 14 months since the government suspended 
all existing marketing agreements (including one with De Beers) and set up 
a new one with Ascorp, a joint venture between itself and Israeli 
businessman Lev Leviev. Its action surprised many observers, who said that 
the Angolan government had been doing its best to reach a compromise. The 
government itself expressed its deep regret at De Beers' "public and 
unilateral" decision to walk out of talks and pull its employees out of 
Angola. Now De Beers seems to be on the verge of a U-turn. Gary Ralfe, De 
Beers' managing director, said last week that the company hopes to be able 
to reach "a mutually satisfactory accommodation" with the Angolan 
authorities. He talked about getting "comfort and confidence" about the 
fiscal and marketing regime which would apply, and said the company had 
received "some pretty reasonable responses" from the 
authorities.   (Financial Times, UK, 27 August 2001)

* Angola. UNITA attacks continue  -  23 August: United Nations humanitarian 
organisations and various international NGO's intend to resume operations 
in northern Angola, in the area between Uije and the border with the 
Democratic Republic of Congo. Recently, a delegation which included 
representatives of the World Food Programme), UNHCR and of some NGOs went 
to the area. The aim was to establish whether or not current conditions 
will allow a resumption of humanitarian activities. 27 August: In Angola, 
reports are coming of a bus that was ambushed in the north of the country 
on 24 August. One report said 50 people had been killed. The attack 
happened exactly a week after Unita rebels ambushed a train, killing over 
two hundred people. But it is not clear who is behind this latest attack. 
About a hundred people were on board the bus which was attacked on 24 
August near the town of Cacolo in Malange province, about 400 km east of 
Luanda.   (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 27 August 2001)

* Angola. Attaque d'un bus: 50 morts  -  Plus de 50 personnes ont été tuées 
en Angola lors d'une attaque perpétrée par des hommes armés, le 24 août, 
près de la localité de Cacolo (à 30 km de la ville de Malange, capitale de 
la province du même nom, à l'est de Luanda) contre un bus transportant une 
centaine de passagers, a annoncé l'agence portugaise Lusa. Une survivante 
de l'attaque a déclaré que le bus était tombé dans une embuscade et que le 
groupe armé avait incendié le véhicule en faisant feu sur les passagers qui 
tentaient de s'enfuir.   (La Libre Belgique, 28 août 2001)

* Bénin. Programme quinquennal  -  Le 23 août, le chef de l'Etat béninois, 
M. Kérékou, a lancé le programme d'action de son quinquennat (2001-2006), 
qui veut consolider et amplifier des oeuvres de construction entamées 
depuis 1996. Il est axé autour de neuf objectifs, notamment la 
consolidation de la démocratie et de la bonne gouvernance, le renforcement 
des bases matérielles de l'économie, l'aménagement du territoire, la lutte 
contre la pauvreté et la promotion du rayonnement international du pays et 
de l'intégration africaine.   (PANA, Sénégal, 23 août 2001)

* Botswana. Botswana denies wooing white Zimbabwean farmers  -  Local press 
reports in Botswana were this week awash with a denial by the authorities 
in Gaborone that the country was wooing white farmers in Zimbabwe, who are 
presently at odds with the seizure and redistribution of their farmland. In 
the privately owned Botswana Gazette, the Botswana Development Corporation 
(BDC) refuted allegations that it was secretly negotiating with the farmers 
to lease them some of its farms. "We are not financing any settlers," BDC 
spokesman Batlang Mmualefe told the Botswana Gazette in the wake of reports 
that the corporation was trying to lease one of its farms at Talana, on the 
confluence of the Limpopo and Motloutse Rivers.   (PANA, Senegal, 23 August 
2001)

* Botswana. AIDS drug will be available to all who need it  -  The 
government of Botswana -- a country with one of the highest HIV/AIDS 
infection rates in the world -- is expected to announce next week that it 
would make anti-retroviral drugs widely available through its public health 
service. Banu Khan, head of the National Aids Co-ordination Agency, said a 
broad anti-retroviral therapy would be extended across the country within 
two months, alongside the government's prevention campaign. She said: "It's 
not a cure, but it does prolong life and gives a better quality of life." 
The government in neighbouring South Africa has decided that it would not 
provide the costly drugs. In Botswana the drugs would be offered 
universally but the programme would begin with pregnant women and 
tuberculosis sufferers. The cost of individual drug treatment is estimated 
at $30 a month, though when monitoring and consultation are added, the cost 
rises to about $90 a person a month. An estimated 38.5 per cent of 
Botswana's 1.5m population is infected with HIV/AIDS. The high mobility of 
the population is seen as the main reason for this. About 70 per cent of 
ward admissions in the country's overstretched hospitals are HIV/AIDS 
patients.   (Financial Times, UK, 24 August 2001)

* Botswana. Protests against UK diamond campaign  -  On 26 August, Botswana 
struck out at the British government for supporting a campaign against 
conflict diamonds that threatened to damage the economy of the most stable 
southern African country. Louis Nchindo, the head of Debswana, a joint 
venture between the Botswanan government and De Beers, the South African 
diamond group, said the UK government had set out to spoil the diamond 
market although the UK accounted for only a fraction of world demand. Its 
campaign was imperilling development and stability in Botswana, the world's 
largest diamond producer, to put pressure on much smaller producers such as 
Angola and Sierra Leone, he said. Mr Nchindo blamed Peter Hain, the former 
minister for Africa, for latching on to the issue of diamonds used to fund 
conflict to add substance to the Labour government's claim to have an 
ethical foreign policy. "The issue of conflict diamonds came along and they 
[the British government] grabbed it for their moral policy," said he said. 
"If De Beers hadn't been around, they would have had to invent one." The 
diamond industry has come under pressure to screen out diamonds that 
originate from countries where long-running civil wars are supported from 
their revenues. Diamonds have been used to fund rebel movements in Angola, 
the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone in brutal civil wars. De 
Beers has closed its buying operations in these countries and is 
considering introducing a mark of quality to assure jewellery consumers 
that its diamonds have not funded military operations in 
Africa.   (Financial Times, UK, 27 August 2001)

* Burundi. Projet de nouvelle Constitution  -  Le ministre des réformes 
institutionnelles vient de rendre public des informations sur le projet de 
la nouvelle Constitution, préparée par une commission juridique et qui 
régira le Burundi durant la période de transition. Dans ses grandes lignes, 
le projet s'inspire largement de l'accord d'Arusha et de la Constitution de 
1992. Quelques nouveautés consistent dans l'introduction d'un ombudsman, 
d'un conseil supérieur de la magistrature, ainsi que de l'acceptation de la 
formation de partis monarchiques. La nouvelle Constitution prévoit deux 
chambres: un Parlement et un Sénat. Un "Congrès" sera formé de ces deux 
chambres, qui se réuniront à des moments assez rares, notamment pour élire 
le président de la République à la fin de la période transitoire. La 
commission juridique a aussi élaboré un projet de loi réprimant le génocide 
et les crimes contre l'humanité, et un autre projet de loi portant sur une 
immunité provisoire de deux ans pour des crimes à mobile politique (devant 
protéger temporairement des hommes politiques qui décideraient de rentrer 
d'exil).   (D'après l'agence Azania, Burundi, 27 août 2001)

* Burundi. Militaires chassés de l'armée  -  Le 24 août, plus de 320 
soldats, qui avaient participé à la dernière tentative de coup d'Etat 
contre le régime du major Buyoya, ont été chassés de l'armée, ont indiqué 
plusiers sources militaires. Une tentative de coup d'Etat, conduite par 11 
lieutenants, avait échoué dans la nuit du 23 juillet et s'était terminée 
près de Ngozi (nord du Burundi) où les mutins s'étaient finalement rendus. 
Les 11 officiers sont emprisonnés à Ngozi, où ils ont été rejoints par 
trois autres officiers, dont le commandant du Groupement pour la défense de 
la capitale, le lieutenant-colonel Joseph Ndayishimiye, arrêté le 10 
août.   (La Libre Belgique, 28 août 2001)

* Burundi. Soldiers discharged  -  The authorities in Burundi have 
discharged 200 soldiers for attempting to destabilise the country. Army 
spokesman Colonel Augustine Nzabampema said the group were relieved of 
their duties as part of a disciplinary measure following a failed coup in 
July. A group of about 100 others are expected to go on trial for the 
attempted takeover of the government of President Pierre 
Buyoya.   (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 28 August 2001)

Weekly news anb0830.txt End of #2/8